Rethinking Divinity

The Oran Mor, the primordial melody, is like a Celtic knot, weaving throughout the entire universe, knitting an interwoven, cohesive reality.

– Philip Carr Goman

The Great Song of Being

In the pre-Christian Celtic imagination, the world came to be and was kept in being by a song – a symphony performed by the interconnected natural world. Every part of nature contributed to the music, and only those with ears spiritually attuned could hear the melody. This is the ancient Celtic concept of Oran Mor – the Great Song.

Oran Mor is a concept derived from Scottish Gaelic, where "Oran" translates to "song" or "poem," and "Mor" means "great" or "big." Oran Mor can be interpreted as "the Great Song" or "the Great Poem." It carries a deep sense of spiritual and cosmic significance.

More clarity is needed concerning the exact meaning of Oran Mor. While we should not put words in our ancestors’ mouths, we may still reflect on their meanings and employ the term anew within our modern context.

Part of the ambiguity lies with the sometimes conflation of Oran Mor with God or concepts of divinity. Was Oran Mor the creative God? Or was it the song the deity sang to create the world and maintain it in being? Was it nature itself singing? The sparse remnants of the Celtic traditions need to offer clarity.

Despite being polytheistic in its early stages, Celtic culture moved toward various expressions of monotheism until it was pushed fully into that camp by Christianity. Yet throughout all its stages, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish thinkers cultivated notions of God that resisted reification and saw divinity as deeply interwoven in the natural world.

God, too much of the Celtic imagination, is the ground of being, not a thing among other things, but rather the creative wellspring of all things. The Oran Mor is the metaphor for the life-giving creative force in the cosmos. (See Jason Kirkey’s Salmon in the Spring)

For eons, the Celtic spiritual imagination has heard the Oran Mor in the turning of the seasons, in the flowering of the fields, in the harvesting of crops, and in the patterns of the sun, moon, and stars. The divine infused within the world an inherent vision that led the Celts to deem nature sacred.

Our secular culture, with its ears tuned by naturalism, struggles with any notion of divinity, especially assertions of a personal God who interacts directly with humans. This also leads to difficulties accepting the status of anything as sacred or transcendent. The Celtic concept of Oran Mor holds much value for our present concerns.

God as a Metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action by referring to something else with which it shares specific characteristics, qualities, or attributes. Metaphors create vivid imagery, convey abstract ideas, and evoke emotional responses in language.

“Oran Mor" is a metaphor for an ultimate, transcendent reality believed to be the source of all existence and the ground of being. This metaphorical understanding of Oran Mor represents the divine presence and power that sustains and animates the universe, imbuing it with meaning, order, and purpose.

In terms of evolution, Oran Mor represents the creative power of evolution and casts it in a panentheist manner as the dynamic force that brings forth and sustains all existence. It is creative, ordering energy that generates and animates the ongoing cosmic evolution and emergence process. It is the creative potential that unfolds through the unfolding of the universe.

A sense of Oran Mor as meaning involves understanding the concept of “Oran Mor" not as a literal entity or being but as a symbol or metaphor for the ultimate significance, purpose, and value inherent in human existence and the universe.

Oran Mor also serves as a unitive metaphor, representing all things' underlying unity and interconnectedness. As a single source and power, Oran Mor unites all creation in a cosmic web of relationships. It recognizes that all beings are interconnected and interdependent, sharing in the same unfolding, sacred reality.

In this perspective, “Oran Mor" represents the deep longing for meaning and transcendence that pervades human consciousness, shaping our understanding of reality and guiding our ethical and spiritual aspirations.

That Which Upholds All Things

Humans have long recognized the patterns of order within the world. Despite imperfections, reality is regular, a measure of harmony, and predictably predictable, enough for the ancients to speak of our world's nature as a cosmos instead of chaos—meaning an ordered world rather than a random, disordered one. Cosmos implies an interconnected system of cycles and rhythms, a dynamic harmony of changes that is not perfect but more or less ordered and balanced.

Further, the cosmos also implies a world of meaning, whereas chaos implies a nihilistic reality.

The ancients intuited the unity of the diverse world around them and attributed it to the divine. They also intuited nature's life-giving and creative orientation and attributed that force to the sacred.

Therefore, God served as the metaphor-symbol for the ongoing creativity in the universe – the life-giving, creative, ordering power within the emerging into being of all that is. God is a unified shorthand, a metaphor, for the totality of creative-ordering forces in the universe. God is the metaphor for those powers permeated throughout a unified reality.

Recent cognitive neuroscience and linguistics developments have helped us see the crucial role metaphor plays in the mental inference that makes thinking and imagination possible. The common stereotype is that a metaphor is something imaginary and not actual. This may be true on one level, but metaphor is everything at the level of neuroscience and cognition. It is a basic working cognitive unit of our minds, and using metaphor, our concepts are formed and learned.

Retaining God as a metaphor aligns with the Western concept of monotheism, which is the apprehension of a unified transcendent value source. The creative mystery that some call God serves as a foundational symbol for our culture.

For many people, it functions as a primary focus for orientation to the sacred, creative principle driving the mystery of reality – that there is something and not nothing and that this something is orderly, interconnected, and produced conscious life that can ponder questions of meaning. Such notions underlie most mystical experiences.

The Celtic notion of Oran Mor rejects a dualistic separation between the natural and supernatural realms. Instead, it posits a unity between them, wherein the supernatural is immanent within the natural world while transcending it. This perspective allows for a holistic, unified understanding of reality where the contingent and noncontingent dimensions are interconnected and interdependent.

In terms of relationality, individuals can have a relationship with non-person entities or abstract concepts, such as a person having a relationship with their country, as in the case of an Irish person having a relationship with Ireland. This type of relationship is often called a "symbolic relationship" or an "emotional attachment."

There is a sense that ultimate concerns exist—concerns that seem rightly grounded in a reality transcendent to human whim. Such analysis offers the divine as the symbol metaphor for ultimate values and meaning in all their dimensions. It connotes that such should exercise a claim on our loyalty. It bespeaks a sense of how we should order our priorities and commitments. It posits a divine dimension to teleonomy.

Ultimately, a religion based on Oran Mor would strive to awaken individuals to their inherent connection to the divine and the interconnectedness of all existence. It would foster a deep reverence for the universe, encourage a harmonious way of living, and inspire individuals to contribute to the ongoing "song" of creation in their unique ways.

Divinity as Logos

The Greek term "logos" has a rich and varied range of meanings, reflecting its usage in different contexts throughout history. Here are some of the various meanings of the term:

In ancient Greek philosophy, "logos" referred to verbal expression, communication, or discourse. This usage is particularly prominent in the works of philosophers such as Heraclitus and Plato, who explored the role of language in conveying knowledge and understanding.

However, in Greek philosophical discourse, "logos" denotes reason or rationality. This usage is central to the thought of philosophers like Aristotle, who considered “logos,” the faculty of human beings that enables them to think logically, analyze arguments, and discern truth from falsehood. In this sense, "logos" represents the capacity for rational thought and logical discourse.

Logos can be understood as the immanent aspect of the divine that permeates and animates the universe while also transcending it. Panentheism posits that God is both immanent within creation and transcendent beyond it, encompassing and transcending all things. Here's an attempt to explain Logos in panentheistic terms:

Logos represent the immanent presence of God within creation. Just as Logos in Christian theology is the divine Word or Reason that manifests in the world, Logos is the divine principle or creative energy that permeates every aspect of the universe. This immanent Logos is the source of order, beauty, and purpose in creation, sustaining and animating all things.

Logos can also be understood as the cosmic intelligence or organizing principle that governs the universe. This Logos imbues creation with inherent meaning, rationality, and order, guiding its evolution and development according to divine purposes. The underlying harmony and coherence underpins the cosmos's complexity and diversity.

Logos is the divine energy that generates and animates the ongoing cosmic evolution and emergence process. It is the creative potential that unfolds through the unfolding of the universe.

Logos is how God communicates with and reveals Himself to creation. This Logos is the divine voice that speaks through the beauty of nature, the insights of reason, and the intuitions of the human spirit. The universal language of love and wisdom invites all beings into communion with the divine.

Finally, Logos represents the underlying unity and interconnectedness of all things in God. Just as Logos in Christian theology is the principle of unity that binds the Trinity together, Logos is the divine presence that unites all creation in a cosmic web of relationships. It is the recognition that all beings are interconnected and interdependent, sharing in God's holy life and love.

Logos embodies the immanent presence, cosmic intelligence, creative power, divine communication, and unity of all things in God. It expresses the sacred within creation, inviting beings into a deeper awareness of their interconnectedness with the holy and one another.

Divinity as Trinity

Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the major branches of Christianity, has a distinctive understanding of the Trinity, central to its theology and spirituality.

The Eastern Orthodox Church affirms the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity but emphasizes certain aspects and nuances that differ from Western Christianity.

Triune Godhead - Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that God exists eternally as a Trinity of three co-equal and co-eternal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons are distinct from one another, yet they share a single divine essence or substance (ousia). The Trinity is a communion of love and mutual indwelling, with each person fully participating in the holy life.

A key concept in Eastern Orthodox Trinitarian theology is perichoresis, which refers to the mutual indwelling and interpenetration of the three persons of the Trinity. Rather than existing as isolated individuals, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a dynamic, reciprocal relationship of love and communion. This interrelationship is characterized by perfect unity and harmony, with each person glorifying and revealing the others.

Eastern Orthodoxy distinguishes between the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity. The economic Trinity refers to how God relates to the world and acts in history, mainly through the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the immanent Trinity refers to God's eternal, inner life as a Trinity beyond the realm of creation and human experience.

By dividing our experience of the Trinity from the Trinity, Eastern Orthodox theology emphasizes the distinction between God's essence (ousia) and His energies (energetic). While God's essence remains incomprehensible and inaccessible to creatures, His energies are the dynamic manifestations of His presence and activity in the world. Through participation in these divine energies, believers can experience communion with God and growth in holiness.

Overall, the Trinity, as understood by Eastern Orthodoxy, emphasizes the unity, diversity, and relationality of the three persons of God and the dynamic interaction between God and humanity through the divine energies. This Trinitarian understanding shapes Orthodox worship, spirituality, and theology, informing the Church's beliefs about God's nature, presence, and activity in the world.

God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, but neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, where past and future are gathered—neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent nor decline. There would be no dance except for the still point, and there is only the dance.

– T.S. Eliot

From Greek philosophy came the notion of logos, with varied meanings approximating word, reason, logic, idea, and order. Jews had the concept of Memra, which wasn’t equivalent to logos but implied a sense of underlying order in the world rendered by God’s word or action.

Trinitarian theology is rooted in Greek philosophical concepts overlaid in the early Christian communities' understanding of divinity within Jewish contexts. The assertion of the Trinity is based on the Christian experience of the divine in three experiential centers of focus.

The early Greek Fathers spoke of emanations of divine energy in the world. They understood this emanation to have a threefold nature—God as the order in creation (the Father), God as they encountered in Jesus, and God as the enthusiasm and power of transformation experienced interiorly (the Holy Spirit).

Seeking to maintain the Jewish insight of monotheism, whatever the nature of these centers of divine energy, the tradition insists that the fullness of divinity should be understood in terms of their unity.

The Divine energy at work in the world is like a wave of the sea which, rushing up on the flat beach, runs out, even thinner and more transparent, and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears.

– Origen

Later, Christian thinkers would interpret the scriptures along these same lines. In the early centuries of Christian theology, and at the Council of Nicaea, with the formulation of the Creed, the Trinity became an established part of the Christian tradition.

From the perspective of evidential theology, we must recognize the abstract nature of Trinitarian theology and probe the practical meaning of these claims. At the same time, we must accept that the concept and language of the Trinity are engrained in Christian experience and theology and, therefore, must be taken into account.

To apply the term ‘God’ (in the Christian sense) is to say that we perceive a connection between the marvels of the natural world, the moral law, the life of Jesus, the depths of the human personality, our intimations about time, death and eternity, our experience of human forgiveness and love, and the finest insights of the Christian tradition intuitively. To deny the existence of ‘God’ is to say that we cannot (yet) see such connections.

– British Society of Friends, Faith & Practice, 5th Edition

God is not a supernatural entity among other entities. Instead, God is the inexhaustible ground that empowers the existence of beings. 

To paraphrase St. Maximus the Confessor, a great Eastern father – God is truly none of the things that exist and is, properly speaking, all things and, simultaneously, beyond them. God is present in the logos of each thing and all the logos together, according to which all things exist. God is whole in all things commonly, and in each being particularly, without separation or being subject to division, and on the contrary, is truly all things in all, never going out of its indivisible simplicity.

God is the eternal, unifying, creative, sustaining reality behind and beneath the world. This underlying reality is logos, best interpreted as meaning.

Further, while anthropomorphizing is dangerous, at best, it does indeed seem that this reality, perhaps not personal in any sense we humans can grasp, is relational.

Therefore, the world and all in it are sacraments—outward and visible signs of an underlying grace. We never encounter God directly, and our knowledge of the divine remains clouded at best.

But we encounter God in all things, in others, in beauty, in love, and in kindness—mediated through the reality it sustains and permeates. Above all, we encounter God through the church, which is also a sacrament.

At the heart of Christian history and experience is the claim that God/logos is embodied in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is the human face of the West’s apprehension of the unified transcendent value source.